Abusive relationships in Wuthering Heights and Lolita : their representation and critical reception

Abstract

This dissertation examines the representation of abuse, trauma, and resilience in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, focusing on how narrative structures shape reader engagement with these themes. By integrating theories of affective narratology, trauma studies, and narrative ethics, this study explores the ways in which both novels construct and mediate experiences of abuse through their respective literary frameworks – the Gothic and the postmodern. Using Aaron Kunin’s theory of character as form, Patrick Colm Hogan’s affective narratology, and Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, alongside the testimonial framework of Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, this dissertation interrogates how Heathcliff and Humbert Humbert function not only as characters but as narrative forces that manipulate both the reader and the victim within the text. In Wuthering Heights, the fragmented, multi-layered narration obscures and reframes Heathcliff’s cruelty, creating a moral ambiguity that complicates the reader’s ethical stance. Lolita, in contrast, deploys an unreliable first-person narrator whose linguistic sophistication and literary self-awareness serve to distort, aestheticise, and ultimately silence the victim’s experience. Through a comparative analysis of these narrative techniques, this dissertation highlights how literature both exposes and obscures abuse, forcing the reader into an ethically fraught position. It argues that while Wuthering Heights allows for partial recovery through its generational shifts, Lolita remains trapped in the abuser’s self-justifying testimony, offering no clear path to resolution. Finally, the study raises critical questions about reader complicity, the ethics of representation, and how historical and contemporary understandings of trauma shape our interpretations of these texts. By engaging with these issues, this dissertation contributes to scholarly discussions on narrative ethics, trauma theory, and the responsibilities of literary criticism when addressing depictions of abuse. It ultimately challenges readers to consider the power structures embedded in storytelling and the implications of interpreting narratives that foreground coercion, silencing, and moral ambiguity.